Olympics appearances provide lasting memories

Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane will take Steamboat Springs’ Western Heritage to the Olympic stage once again in 2010. The pair, along with Billy Demong, Taylor Fletcher and Brett Camerota, will fuel the powerful U.S. Nordic Combined Ski Team’s drive for the United States’ first Olympic medal in the sport of Nordic combined. The pair recently posed for a photograph in front of the iconic More Barn. Clothing was provided by another Steamboat Springs icon, F.M.Light & Sons.

Steamboat Springs  When Nordic combined skier Gary Crawford first walked into the stadium in Lake Placid, N.Y., for the opening ceremonies of the 1980 Olympics, he lost himself in a flood of emotion.

Surrounded by more than 40,000 cheering fans — many holding banners and waving flags — Crawford made his way along the predetermined parade route inside the stadium with his American teammates. It was there that he first realized he had stepped onto the stage of one of the biggest events in all of sports.

It finally hit that he was an Olympian.

“I’ll never forget it,” said Crawford, a Steamboat Springs resident. “I think it was special because the Olympics were here (in the United States) and, for me, it was a family affair. My father announced my events and my brother, Greg, was a forejumper.”

Crawford said there were so many people at the event that it was hard to focus on any one person, but as he made his way around the arena for the second time — taking in the colors, sounds and excitement — he could hear a familiar sound coming from the stands.

“I had grown up with a special whistle that my dad would use to call us home … when we would hear it, no matter where we were, we knew it was time to get home,” he said. “I heard that whistle, and I knew exactly where to find my family. It was really neat to hear that whistle at the Olympics.”

Four days later, Crawford finished 28th in the Nordic combined event (in 1980, there was only one event for Nordic combined athletes) and added his name to the long list of Olympians, including his father Marvin (Cortina, Italy, 1956), who call Steamboat Springs home.

Crawford missed the 1984 games, but returned to the Olympic spotlight at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, after teammate Kerry Lynch talked him into rejoining the team. Crawford broke his neck in January 1987 after a freak fall while landing a jump. He recovered in time to qualify for the 1988 Olympics but said he was never able to mentally overcome the fall.

“I jumped safe in Calgary,” Crawford said. “I ran well in the cross-country race, but you can’t play it safe when you are competing at the Olympics.”

Crawford traveled to Sap­poro, Japan, for one more competition that year before he retired. He says he never lost his passion for skiing or the Olympics.

Today, he works as a volunteer coach with the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club’s Nordic program alongside fellow past Olympians Todd Wilson, Kerry Lynch and Martin Bayer. Lynch competed with Crawford at the 1980 Olympics. He finished 18th in the event that year and 13th four years later when the Olympics took place in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He also remembers the opening ceremonies in Lake Placid warmly.

“I had goose bumps for an hour after the opening ceremonies,” Lynch said. “It’s a really special moment in time. … You never know what is going to happen or if you will ever experience that again.”

Lynch did get another shot in 1984, but he said the magic created by the 1980 Olympics was not present when Sarajevo, which was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the time, hosted the Olympics.

“I remember there were soldiers everywhere I looked, and at the time, we all realized that we were not in Kansas anymore,” Lynch recalls. “There were hardly any people in the stands for opening ceremonies — maybe 10,000.”

Lynch and Wilson are just a couple of the Winter Sports Club coaches who were drawn to Ski Town USA after they retired and have since become a part of our town’s rich Olympic tradition.

“We know what the Olympics have done for us,” Lynch said. “I think we are all proud to have been Olympic athletes, and we are lucky to have an opportunity to pass that onto the young athletes who are coming up in Steamboat Springs.”

Bringing home hardware

In 1992, Steamboat Springs freestyle skier Nelson Carmichael waited at the top of the moguls course in Tignes, France, sitting on the threshold of skiing history for Steamboat Springs.

Carmichael, who cut his teeth in the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club’s freestyle programs, insists he wasn’t thinking about becoming the first skier from Steamboat Springs to bring home a medal. To tell the truth, there was just one thing Carmichael was thinking about as he made his way down the course.

“All I kept thinking was, ‘Don’t mess up,’” he recalled this winter.

Carmichael had qualified fourth and knew he was going to need a solid run to move up to the podium. He flew through the bumps at a blistering pace and landed a 360 on the top air and a twister-spread on the bottom air.

By today’s standards, the jumps weren’t much to look at, but Carmichael and the other skiers didn’t have the kickers or landings that are in place on modern moguls courses. It was the first year the sport was labeled full-medal. At the 1988 games, freestyle skiing was a demonstration sport.

Carmichael said he made a few minor mistakes on the way down but that when it was finished, the Steamboat skier had earned the right to stand on the podium. France’s Edgar Grospiron won gold, and teammate Olivier Allamand took silver. Carmichael held on for third and the bronze medal.

“I don’t know that I added that much to Steamboat’s skiing heritage,” Carmichael said. “It started so long ago and is so entrenched in the community. It goes back to our Nordic roots and to the first Alpine ski racers, and it just keeps growing and growing.”

Carmichael may have been the first Steamboat athlete to bring home a medal, but he’s not alone. Shannon Dunn added another bronze to the mix by taking third in the women’s halfpipe in Sapporo, Japan, at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games.

Carmichael and Dunn may not have realized it at the time, but their medal performances inspired a new generation of skiers across the country and, more important, at Howelsen Hill.

Ten years after Carmichael’s bronze-medal run, one of those athletes — freestyle skier Travis Mayer — upped the ante when he won silver in men’s moguls at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. But like Carmichael before him, Mayer is humble about his contributions to Steamboat’s skiing heritage.

“I think Howelsen Hill and the Winter Sports Club are essential to Steamboat Springs’ Olympic heritage,” Mayer said. “Steamboat loves to celebrate its past and the athletes who have been a part of that past. I think that’s one of the things that makes it such a great place.”

Mayer, who graduated from The Lowell Whiteman School, said he’s not sure he would have earned the medal if he had not come to Steamboat Springs and the Winter Sports Club. He said his coaches at the Winter Sports Club, including former Olympic skier Bobby Aldighieri, and the support of the community were the keys to his success.

Steamboat’s winter Olympians

In celebration of the Olympics, the Pilot & Today compiled a list of all winter Olympians with connections to Steamboat Springs.

The resources for compiling this list were the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club and the Tread of Pioneers Museum. The list includes Olympians who grew up here, Olympians who trained here, Olympians who moved here and Olympians from other countries who trained or lived here.

The Olympians are listed alphabetically with the years they competed and the events in which they competed. The names of athletes competing in the 2010 Winter Olympics are bold.